Reggae Roma Tomato

Reggae Roma Tomato
What: Seedling (Floriana Reggae Roma Tomato).
Where: Large square self watering planter.
When: March 2009 (?).

Sown in: Top 100mm of Yates Premium Seed Raising Potting Mix, rest Yates Regular Potting Mix.
Fertiliser: Thin layer of RICHGROW: Organic Blood and Bone + Trace Elements & Sulphate of Potash 100mm below surface. Weekly application of YATES: Multi-Nutrient Plant Food with Seaweed at 5ml/L.

Advertised Germination: Seedling
Actual Germination: Seedling

Advertised Maturity: Not shown.
Actual Maturity: 14 weeks.

23 June 2009

23 June 2009

23 June 2009

23 June 2009

Woke up to find that this plant has started to turn yellow from the bottom leaves.

3 July 2009

It has been quite cold here the past few mornings but from what I’ve been able to research this is most likely due to over-watering or a result of magnesium deficiency.

On further inspection it's unlikely that it is over-watered as the soil doesn't feel very wet at all and the self watering reservoir is not overflowing so it must be a magnesium deficiency.

3 July 2009 Gave the plant about 2L of water with dissolved Epsom Salt (Magnesium Sulphate) at a rate of 18g/L.

5 July 2009

Got carried away and pruned the bejebus out of this today in an effort to increase air flow and get a bit of sunlight on the fruit in that hope that they will ripen in the next week. About 20 minutes later a big Currawong landed on the planter……. Tied a few CD’s to the support pole in the hope that it will scare it away before its beak does much damage.

Noticed that the weight of all the fruit made the whole plant slip down the support and the main stems were fairly kinked towards the bottom as you can see in the '5th July' picture above.

Re-supported it and hopefully the remaining fruit will ripen up although the temperature has dropped significantly in the last week.

9 July 2009

The last of the tomatoes are ripening up nicely!

11 July 2009

The pick of the bunch from my Reggae Roma Tomato plant weighing in at about 180g.

25 July 2009

I saved some seeds from this big boy to plant.

THE NEXT GENERATION

Reggae Roma Tomato
What: Seed (from the 180g tomato).
Where: 3L Juice containers and small seedling container.
When: 5 August 2009.

Sown in: Top 100mm of Yates Premium Seed Raising Potting Mix
Fertiliser: Thin layer of RICHGROW: Organic Blood and Bone + Trace Elements & Sulphate of Potash 100mm below surface. Weekly application of YATES: Multi-Nutrient Plant Food with Seaweed at 5ml/L.

Advertised Germination: Unknown (first generation from seedling).
Actual Germination: 10 days.

Advertised Maturity: Unknown.
Actual Maturity: 16 Weeks.

15 August 2009

22 August 2009

This plant just took off so I decided to get it into 'grow out' mode ASAP.

6 September 2009

It turns out I shouldn't have worried about the viability of the seeds I processed from the original plant! These seedling were from a tomato that wasn’t the greatest in terms of size so I’ll just keep them as backups for a while and probably just chop them up to add to my aphid death brew.

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing but this plant is in a hury to produce fruit as I've pinched off two lots of flower buds already.

19 September 2009

This plant has really taken off in the last week and is at a size now where I'm happy to let it flower.

5 October 2009

In just under 2 weeks this plant has almost doubled in size and is now starting to set fruit although annoyingly all of the flowers are growing in towards the support pole..... I pruned some of the lower leaves as they were starting to look a bit worse for wear, maybe some early signs of over-watering.

18 October 2009

It's now over 5ft high.

24 October 2009

Lots of fruit settling in at this stage! Contrary to just about everything I have ever read on growing tomatoes I have found I get the highest production by pruning the living daylights out of my plants and encouraging the growth of suckers.

7 November

Starting to get a bit of colour into them.

20 November 2009

From seed to harvest took 16 weeks for this Reggae Roma.

25 November 2009

So far I've gotten about 2kg of tomatoes from this plant which I chucked in with a heap of chives, oregano, parsley, basil and a bit of chilli to make up a big batch of pasta sauce. I also saved a few seeds to plant later.

1 December 2009

I pulled the last 500g of tomatoes from this plant on Sunday 6 December. This plant was about half as productive as the first Reggae Roma plant I had but suffered early on from a lack of sun. Unless I spot another Reggae Roma seedling in the local nurseries, I'll wait until the Apollo tomatoes I've got going have run their course and the sun returns in late Feb before I have another go with this line.